Google to open Chinese artificial intelligence research lab

Google's announcement about a new facility in China comes after a period of speculation and a talent hunt in the country. As a country, China is both strict on foreign firms influencing its population, and supportive of AI research and development, and Google has been making efforts to demonstrate its AI products there. A new Beijing centre was announced today (13 December) in Shanghai, and will be led by Fei-Fei Li, a professor at Stanford University who is chief scientist of AI and machine learning at Google Cloud, and Dr Jia Li, head of research and development at Google Cloud AI. Google describes itself as an "AI-first" firm. It is extending its artificial intelligence research into China, despite its search engine, App Store, email and cloud services being banned in the country.